So you’ve tapped into the amazing online selling experience Amazon has to offer, and you’re killing it right? Your Amazon sales are up, reviews are pouring in, inventory is moving quickly and most importantly you are making great money. All of a sudden you check your email:

“Hello from Amazon.

We are writing to let you know we have removed your selling privileges, canceled your listings, and placed a temporary hold on any funds in your Marketplace Payment accounts. Any new selling accounts you open will be closed.”

You find yourself reading the details of the email over again, racking your brain for what you could have possibly done wrong as a seller on Amazon.

Amazon’s terms and conditions outline hundreds of rules and regulations on what and how you can sell products on Amazon. By selling your items on Amazon you are agreeing to comply to all of these rules at risk of getting your sellers account suspended if you do not.

Unfortunately, in too many situations, sellers will find it hard to determine exactly what they did that suspended their Amazon account.

There are 3 top reasons why Amazon will suspend seller accounts.

Negative Feedback.

Amazon sees maintaining the trust of their millions of buyers as a top priority. To ensure that sellers on Amazon are cultivating a satisfactory experience, high performance targets were established. If the selling experience you are providing yields too much negative feedback, your performance metrics will not meet the necessary standards and your account will be at risk of suspension.

Fake or Incentivized Reviews

One great tactic to get your products to rank above your competitors on Amazon is to get more reviews. Getting your buyers to leave reviews on your product can be really tricky and may entice you to buy fake reviews, or incentivize buyers to leave them. This is a sure-fire way to get your Amazon seller account suspended.

Selling Restricted Products

Products offered for sale on Amazon must comply with all laws and Amazon regulations. There is a long list of these restricted items that Amazon warns you to read through before selling your product. Such items include adult only content, alcohol, counterfeit currency, animals, used clothing, fire arms and much more.

Many sellers think they are in the clear when blurring the lines of selling restricted products if their product listing goes live. This may be deceiving. If Amazon catches onto the restricted product at a later date, they will not hesitate to suspend the associated seller’s account.

There is good news here though. A suspension does not automatically mean that your account will be banned forever. There are some steps you can follow to get your account up and selling again.

Read the notice you received from Amazon about your suspension.
Although the notice will most likely be frustratingly vague, you may be able to decipher what occurred that violated Amazons selling policies and agreements.

Fix/ remove any prevailing issues that could have prompted the account suspension.

Respond to the appeal with an outlined recovery plan with tangible steps as to how you will fix the violation (if you have not already) as well as how you will proactively prevent this from happening in the future.

Wait for Amazon to respond to your appeal.

This last step can be the most frustrating step to getting your Amazon account unsuspended. For every minute that your account is suspended, you are losing money. It may take weeks or even months to get your account reinstated.

Have you ever heard of the saying “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket”?
Amazon is an eCommerce king and can make your company a lot of money. But we must remember at the end of the day, as sellers, Amazon does not owe us anything. The whole platform is theirs and we have to play by their rules.

This is exactly why relying solely on Amazon for your income and putting all of your eggs in the metaphorical Amazon basket is extremely risky.

So what is your next move?

Now that you are in the process of getting your Amazon account reinstated you should take the next steps to getting your products on your own eCommerce website. This will give you the opportunity to build your own brand and give you complete ownership of your products’ success.

Diversifying your revenue streams by supplementing your Amazon sales with an eCommerce website is extremely beneficial for a multitude of reasons.

Your ROI Will Be Higher

Regardless of if you are an Individual Seller or Pro Merchant on Amazon, you should be very familiar with the flat fees and sale percentage fees that you must cough up when working within the Amazon marketplace.

Amazon requires one of these types of fees, depending on how you set up your Amazon seller account in return for listing your products on their site.

Get More Data About the Customers Finding You

Amazon takes maintaining the privacy of it’s buyers very seriously. For this reason, as a seller on Amazon, you will receive very little information about your customers.

This may not seem like a big deal when you are moving a lot of inventory on Amazon, but not being able to understand your target demographic is a huge missed opportunity.

Knowing exactly who your customers are and how they interact with your products, allows you to shape your sales tactics to better fit that demographic, ultimately increasing your sales conversions.

Audience Demographic

Having your own eCommerce website will provide you with in-depth insights into the demographic (age and gender), geography (language and location) as well as the technology your buyers are using when visiting your website.

You can monitor the number of visitors who come to your site, the number of page views, average page duration, bounce rate and so much more.

Audience Acquisition

Track where your customers are coming from with your own eCommerce website.

Identify if customers are coming from social media sites, referral sites, organic searches, email and more.

Being able to see where your clients are coming from allows you to understand what marketing and advertising tactics are and are not working. This allows you to identify which tactics will drive the most traffic to your products so you can stop wasting money guessing.

Audience Behavior

Having your own eCommerce website allows for you to watch the behavior of your shoppers.
Having the ability to see how your shoppers interact on your product pages gives you the ability to shape your content to convert more sales.

Capture Your Customers’ Emails

Have you ever heard of marketers referring to email marketing as one of the most effective marketing tools?

When you sell your products on the Amazon marketplace all buyers are technically Amazon’s customers. Therefore, you do not get buyers’ email addresses, ultimately limiting your ability to use email marketing.

Owning your own eCommerce website allows for you to creatively capture clients’ emails which is beneficial for a multitude of reasons.

Email marketing helps create lasting relationships and brand loyalty

Emails keep your brand consistently on the top of your clients’ minds

Emails can be extremely personalized and targeted to your clients, opening more doors for converting sales

Email marketing is inexpensive. You can target clients who already show interest in your product without paying Amazon for every product click through their advertising platform

Have Complete Control Over All Advertising Methods

Although Amazon Sponsored Products can be very effective in making sales in the Amazon marketplace, using this as your only product advertisement is a huge missed opportunity.

When you own your own eCommerce website you can leverage all types of advertising. From email marketing to Google PPCs, influencer marketing and more, you can experiment with all types of advertising to better convert sales.

Have Peace of Mind Knowing That Your Website Won’t Be Suspended

One of the biggest benefits of having an eCommerce site is knowing that you have full and complete control over it.

The rules and regulations are what you create, and you don’t have to worry about making an honest mistake and losing out on all of your income.

Amazon is, by all means, an amazing platform to use when selling your product. With millions of Amazon users online every day, with credit card information stored and free shipping available, Amazon truly is the king of eCommerce.

Although supplementing your Amazon sales efforts with an eCommerce website of your own is the smartest and most efficient way of utilizing and generating money from the online market.

Do you need help creating an eCommerce website or need tips to convert more sales? Contact us with your questions, we are happy to help!

Related Posts

What Is Customer Journey Mapping? Once you have familiarized yourself with concept of the Customer Journey, it is important to understand how to best translate the concept into a framework to attract and lock in customers. After all, isn’t that why we’re all here? Say hello to Customer Journey Mapping. An effective Customer Journey Map will […]

What Is The Customer Journey? So, let’s begin by cutting directly to the point; if you want to not only make the most revenue but also drive repeat and referral business, you want to have a comprehensive understanding of your customer’s journey. This applies to ANY business; brick and mortar stores, physical products, informational products, […]

Why is My Amazon Seller Account Suspended? With over $100 billion in expected annual sales and over 244 million customers, it is not new news that Amazon is the E-commerce king. It has built-in trust, buyers’ payment information is already saved and Amazon Prime members get free 2-day shipping. Amazon can’t be beaten when it […]